Quotes from book
The Wild Boys

Name: The Wild Boys
Author: William S. Burroughs

The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead is a novel by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs. It was first published in 1971 by Grove Press. It depicts a homosexual youth movement whose objective is the downfall of western civilization, set in an apocalyptic late twentieth century.

“Before my father started using morphine again he sent me to a Japanese person to learn something called Karate. I learn these things fast because I am blank inside, and I have no special way of moving or doing things so one way is the same to me as another. ‘”

William S. Burroughs book The Wild Boys

The Wild Boys (1971)

“I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for something I must do before I can go.”

William S. Burroughs book The Wild Boys

The Wild Boys (1971)

“I saw the Colonel empty his revolver and go down under ten wild boys. A moment later they tossed his bleeding head into the air and started a ball game. Just at dusk the wild boys got up and padded away. They left the bodies stripped to the skin many with genitals cut off. The wild boys make little testicles in which they carry their hasish and khat.”

William S. Burroughs book The Wild Boys

The Wild Boys (1971)

“In the fields workers are planting maize seeds under the direction of an overseer with staff and headdress. Close-up of a worker’s face. Whatever it is that makes a man a man, all feeling and all soul has gone out in that face. Nothing is left but body needs and body pleasures. I have seen faces like that in the back wards of state hospitals for the insane. Faces that live to eat, shit and masturbate.”

William S. Burroughs book The Wild Boys

The Wild Boys (1971)